It was either call it that or "The Learnin' Thread."

After discussion of high school and college in BobKay's thread, it got me to wondering about the education levels of the board members. All data will be used in my upcoming paper on audiopiles.

Pardon this moment of political correctness: I recognize that education level does not always correspond to intelligence. There is no judging here. I just have a morbid curiosity and am used to asking people this kind of question all day long.

Poll Question: What is the highest level of schooling that you have completed?

NOTES:
• Admittedly, these are answers that fit the U.S. educational system. International users and others that may feel that your answer does not fit neatly into these pigeon holes, then give it your best shot anyway.
• Look here for the definition of GED.
• I would consider a trade certification that took up to two years to complete (e.g. cosmetology, phlebotomy) around the same as an Associate's degree.
• I know our group will skew higher than average, but I'm curious to see how much higher.

I received a GED in the military by just taking the test. Then completed a 9 month, 6 hours a day, computer programming school back in the late 70's. Then I've taken several individual college courses through the years. I've decided to call this an Associates degree.

Looks like a pretty even distribution to me.

Hopefully this will go well and then I can start polling people on more intimate stuff. Mwah hah haaaa

I didn't "technically" finish high school, as I had my accident during the school year, but I do have my high school diploma.

I haven't, and will not, pursue any education that I have to pay money for. Ridicule me all you want, but I believe that education should be free in a democratic society.

I've self taught myself via various media on multiple topics. The majority of books that I've read, and own, are used in college and university curriculum.

You idiot! You dolt! What a moron! You idealistic freetard!


As opposed to someone else self-teaching you, right?


I feel better now.

Dammit!

I just took the average down a bit... sorry

John, 1st grade was not a choice.

OK, so I didn't take the average down as much as I could have

8000 hr Tool & Die apprenticeship, what's that come under? Doctorate of Milling? Bachelors Degree of Turning?

Should have had a selection for tradesman, JP. I'm sure there's a few here(although I'm no longer in the trade).

If you read a little closer a trade certification of at least 2000hrs would be considered an Associates Degree.

John, you went to "that-school-up-North." We already knew you were going to lower the average.







Sorry John. Couldn't resist. No disrepect meant seriously. U of M is a great school


(with a temporarily lousy football team)

Great idea, JP. Being an idiot, I'm most impressed with how you managed the whole vote/graphics interface.

If you can do that, I have tons of ?'s that I'd have asked to everyone already, if I knew there WAS a way to do it anonymously.

I'd ask you to tell me how you did it, but it took posts from 6 people here to teach me how to imbed a URL, so...

And if you DID tell me, more people would hate you than at present.

I'd be concerned about how ugly this poll thing could get, but the savage amusement quotient wins out handily.

The polls are easy to set up. Check the FAQ.

Pipe down, you. I have Bob convinced I'm a genius.

Ken, you should know better. You're one of the six people who tried to help me figure out the URL thing.

I'll just have to trust that Doctor S. has equally deviant things on his mind. And I do.

You chimed in too soon, of course, when the number of responses (n) was 4. I think you were being funny; if not, I'll still give you the benefit of the doubt Now that we're at n=30, there's a nice bell curve centered around a 4-year college degree.

Bob and I will confer on future polls.

Of course I was being funny. I'm always being funny. Except when I'm not being funny. When I'm not being funny, it's not funny.

You're funny.

You tink dat's funny?

I'd be honored. Will there be any injuries incurred?

If there's any more algebra II involved, I'll have to recuse myself.

Recuse yourself, abuse yourself - another day in the land of Bob.

Amuse yourself - another day in the land of Mark.

There's the right attitude!

This board is one of my main ways of amusing myself.

Hat tip to you all.

Funny lookin'!

Between the ears!

At least to a high school diploma level, but even that isn't always happening.

I have my MBA in Technical Management, and honestly it hasn't helped me retain a job in tough times (even when I had excellent reviews and had my manager apologizing over and over when they couldn't extend my employment longer than 1 month after my office closed) and it didn't seem to help me get a job faster either.

Free education? if you can convince land owners to give you a few acres for nothing, builders and suppliers to erect the facility for free, then get a staff of a 100 or so teachers to work for nothing, it could be possible...oh yeah, books, computers ect, maybe Staples could donate those....otherwise I guess it'll be paid by taxes.

We all remember when you forsook us for Facebook. Of course you came crawling back.

Yeah, JP; that made me sad.

Why do I have the urge to pen a country song about this?

My philosophical beliefs on how a society should be run are obviously the reasons for my sentiments towards education.

Nothing can or will be free in an evil capitalist society that exploits everything and everyone that it can.

What modernized society doesn't exploit every thing and everyone, capitalist or not?

Not sure how to answer w/o a how many years of schooling option. Technically I only have a High School diploma. However, I have over 7 years of post High School education mostly at the Masters level. I’m just to much of a lazy non-conformist to “dot-the-I’s- and-cross-the-T’s” to have someone actually call any of it a degree. So which should I put for your poll “High School?

“Free” education? Let me check what my property taxes are going for . . . .

I'm in almost exactly the same situation. 18 months of a trade school (well, Art Institute), and 30 months at a 2 year collage. I think I'd have an AS in Computer Science if I filled in the right forms, and a second in Mathematics if I completed one more course. But I put High School as my level, because "Some College", which I usually pick, was not listed.

I'm proud of not having a college degree.

You sure you're not more proud at what you've achieved without one rather than being proud you don't have one? Sounds like a cut against us institutionalized folks.

Yeah, I'm hearing a hint of "you and your book-learnin'"

Next, JohnK will be tellin' us he dropped out in grade 9!

I flunked 2nd grade, because I couldn’t read, damm dyslexia.

I also skipped most of my senior year of high school since I turned 18 half way through. Back then in AZ you could write your own excuses if you were 18 so I just had friends turn in my home work and showed up for tests.

The office workers use to bitch at me when I’d write excuses like “Kidnapped by Pirates.” bureaucrats . . . no sense of humour.

I used to write my own notes to get out early, or take a day off in high school, mostly gr 9-10(age 15-16). When I say "wrote my own note", I mean signing one of my parents name on it....I always wondered years later if the school mailed those notes back to my parents or not. I'm still alive, so I guess my dad never saw them.

Notes? You guys used notes? I was never brave enough to write a note, I just told the teachers I had an appointment of some kind, Denist, Doctor, for some 'injury' and I was out the door, no questions asked

Fixed. Put people in the mix and there will be exploitation. We are all evil captialists (ie: selfish) at heart.

Oooooh, did you get one of the padded rooms?

The human element is why communism doesn't work either. Great concept on paper and in theory. Applied it has shown to fail time and time again to be oppressive and exploitative to its people. Every political and economic system is not perfect and flawed in its own particular way.

No, our room was concrete.

QFT.

What does quantum field theory have to do with this?

Ah, social darwinism..... There's no truth to the selfish gene?

There are numerous groups of peoples around the world that live altruistically, like our common ancestors.

Tribes, and mennonites are perfect examples.

Human beings have evolved to the point where we can understand the selfish genes that shaped us. Being conscious of this, every time we do some form of charity work, an altruistic act etc., we are overcoming natural selection.

"Our evolved brains empower us to rebel against our selfish genes"-Richard Dawkins

Call me Huxley .

I highly doubt our common ancestors lived in social Altruism. It is easy to look at the past through rose coloured glasses to pick and choose what we like.

Tribes are an interesting choice of example. Internally very supportive, externally very opportunistic. There is a very clear division of Us and Them and very clear rules for dealing with the two.


Hmm... but what do we do with that empowerment. How many people even think about this stuff?

Back to you Huxley.

When I said "common ancestors" I was referring to the ape. Chimpanzees are extremely altruistic and consoling.




What do we do with that empowerment? We are altruistic, caring etc. That's precisely what Dawkins is saying in that quote.

There's obviously bad people in the world that are empowered in vicious ways, but that has nothing to do with what Dawkins is talking about. This empowerment that he mentions, gives us the capacity to be the exact opposite type of person.

Huxley was just for a laugh BTW, Fred :-). He popped into my head because there was mention of him in a documentary and I watched on Thursday.

Well, the pedant in me must point out that they are not a common ancestor, and in fact may not be our closes relative.

Chimps are also capable of waging war and have been observed doing so. They are also capable of murder, bribery (food for sex being one form) playing favorites and a number of other not so nice human characteristics. You should check out some of the more recent research. National Geographic did an excellent piece on chimps not long ago.

As to Dawkins, he is not particularly altruistic or charitable toward the 'tribe' antithetical to his own atheist tribe.

What say you now Huxley old chap?

Within their own clan. They can be quite quite the bastard warriors against chimps from other clans. They also hunt and eat other primates.

I think it's time to stop using other primates as examples to be looked up to, Cam.

Cam writes:

When I said "common ancestors" I was referring to the ape. Chimpanzees are extremely altruistic and consoling.

Gee, Cam, no ape (pongidae) is a common ancestor of human beings.

Chimps altruistic and consoling? Yeah, no, they're not. They'll gladly bite your face off and shtupp you up the tuchas.

Huey Newton, freedom fighter? No, murderer.

Che Guevara, freedom fighter? No, a mass murderer.

That penguin of yours isn't too kind, himself, 2x6.

Those are trained attack penguins, in case you hadn't noticed.

Trained by the Three Stooges?

You may laugh, but you won't be laughing after you've been flippered.

I used to feel bad for the cute little seals getting chased by great white sharks. Then I saw the seals chasing penguins trying to rip them apart. Damn seals.

There are stories after stories of monkees or chimps or apes ( I don't the difference) ripping people apart and gouging them and biting them. It's horrific. Wild animals are wild animals.

I'll trust my ringing ears.

What?

Chimps and baboons are pretty fearsome animals. They do hunt and eat meat, usually monkeys and such. I saw one eat Mickey Dolenz.

I'm saying I'll stop laughing once the flipper has caused ringing in my ears.

Was that before his career started?

Lol, yeah after the monkey ate Mickey he went ape sh#t!

Ha ha. Other people go bananas. He goes digested bananas.

ooooohhh, 2x sixeee

congratulations on your very low member identification #.

202

Yup. Been here a while.

Why do we always have to fall back on comparing ourselves to the ape family?

Isn't there some way we can do a car analogy instead?

I'd better choose Ferrari before Ken wakes up.

Time zone differential exploitation FTW!

Remote stab remote stab remote stab.

You're avitar looks like the little one is going to punch someone in the face.